Too Few Words, Not Enough Time
by Kimberly Warner
Summary: Mulder works up the courage to tell Scully how he feels, but fate has other plans. **Unfinished Story**
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All characters related to the X-Files do not belong to me, but to Chris Carter and 1013 Productions. I am merely borrowing them for my own devices. No copyright infringement is intended.

  
Please R&R.

Spoilers: No particular episode, but just to be safe, everything up until the Millenium episode, but not including.

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Too Few Words, Not Enough Time

By Kimberly Warner

  
  
  
Saturday, 4:45 PM  
  
The sun was hot on her arms as she drove through the frustrating rush hour traffic. It was maddening, this stop and go jungle of rubber, steel and pavement. *I must be insane. This is my day off. Why am I out here?* The thoughts swam angrily through Dana Scully's mind. But what choice did she have? The urgency in Mulder's voice on the phone could not be ignored. 

  
"Scully? Yeah, I need to talk to you." Her partner's voice had seemed uncertain as he spoke. 

  
"You are talking to me, Mulder." 

  
Mulder coughed out a nervous laugh. "No, I mean, in person. Please," his voice became utterly serious, "it's important. Meet me at my apartment?"

  
Sighing, Scully took a long look at herself. She was disheveled, still in a bathrobe and slippers, and really in no state to go anywhere. Yet she could not ignore Mulder's earnest plea.

  
"Are you sure this can't wait? What's so important?" Knowing that she'd end up going anyway, she began rummaging around for some clothes as she talked.

  
"It just is important. And no it can't wait. Please Scully, humor me?" 

  
"All right, all right…I'll be there." She sighed.

  
"Great!" She could almost see Mulder beaming on the other end of the phone. Mulder, beaming? "Oh, and Scully?"

  
"Yeah?"

  
"I-I'll see you when you get here."

  
"Bye Mulder." And then she hung up.

  
Now, here she was, stranded in traffic on an unusually hot Saturday, just because of her partner's mysterious "need to talk." Of course, she hadn't convinced herself that she was really mad at him for it. For some reason the things he did never kept her very angry for long.

  
After over several years of working with him, Scully assumed that she was…used to…working with Mulder. No, that wasn't it at all. And she'd admitted it before, but never out loud. They'd both gone through too much together to just be used to each other. Scully knew that they shared something special, something that transcended mere friendship.

It was strange, really. As she drove, Scully thought of all the things they'd been through together and it occurred to her that if there were two people in the world who were least alike, it was her and her partner. Her cool skepticism and his burning desire to believe in the impossible should have been enough to keep them as nothing more than friends, but, as Scully realized, they had become something more. 

  
A smile crept across her face at the simple knowledge that Mulder had always been there for her, both good times and bad. He was really the only one who ever had. Six years and they both had already experienced more, and seen more, than most people do in a lifetime. They had saved each other's lives on countless occasions, they had shared in each other's joy and grief...they were the best of friends. They completed each other.

  
Their friendship was something, which Scully did not doubt. She never did. 

  
Inadvertently, she found herself drawn back to pondering why Mulder had called her over. Knowing him, it could be any number of things; an X-File being at the top of her list. But no, that couldn't be it. Mulder wouldn't have sounded so desperate, so...boyish. Scully laughed out loud at the thought. What would make her partner sound boyish? Serious, yes. Sarcastic, yes. She could even remember mournful, at times. But boyish was not something she normally associated with Mulder. 

  
Her curiosity was definitely piqued though. She now couldn't wait to get over to his apartment to find out what exactly what was up. 

  
Fate, if Scully even believed in it, unfortunately had other plans that day. 

  
It was a freak accident really. Scully had just started passing through the intersection leading onto Mulder's street when it happened. She saw the car before it careened into hers; a large black pickup truck with mismatched fenders and dark, tinted windows. Funny, how the driver didn't even seem to put on his brakes. She would remember that moment for all eternity; the horrifying crash, crunching of metal and glass all around her, the pain...it lasted forever.

Just before Scully succumbed to the quiet darkness, she couldn't help but think that she would never, ever see Mulder again. That, it seems, was the most painful thing of all. 


	2. Chapter 2

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See disclaimers in Chapter 1.

Too Few Words, Not Enough Time

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Chapter 2

By Kimberly Warner

Saturday, 7:00 PM  
  
Mulder paced his apartment like a trapped cat. 

  
It had been almost three hours since he'd called Scully, pleading with her to come over, and she had said that she would be there shortly. Shortly. Three hours was not short and Mulder had begun to worry. 

  
After about an hour he'd called her home and gotten no answer. Okay, that was no surprise...at least she'd left already. Next he'd tried her cell phone. No answer. A little knot of fear formed in his stomach; Scully rarely ever turned off her cell phone. 

  
_Maybe she just left it at home_, he thought hopefully. Rare occurrence, but it could happen. Of course.

  
And then, behind that thought, another one crept up and wrapped its fingers around Mulder's soul. Maybe, she didn't have a choice. Something could've happened to her...

  
He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to count the number of times Scully had been taken from him, the number of times she had been hurt because of him. Each time he did, a great sadness would well up inside him, a pain so strong that it made him want to die. All because of one thing--Scully. He loved her. 

  
Mulder had known he was in love with Scully for some time now. The realization had come to him suddenly one day. It was as if the skies had opened up above him. He just watched her walk into the office one morning and he knew. Perhaps it was the way she smiled at him in greeting, or the way her soft red hair fell around her face. Whatever it was, Mulder could suddenly imagine himself spending the rest of his life with this woman. It was the greatest feeling in the world. 

  
The only problem was that he had neglected to tell the object of his affection that he was in love with her. Underlying his love was a fear that Scully wouldn't share his feelings.   
He had never, ever doubted her love for him as a friend. And really, if he searched his soul deep enough, he knew that she loved him the same way he loved her, there was no denying it, was there? However, the great Fox Mulder was afraid of rejection nonetheless. 

  
Every time he thought he'd worked up enough courage to finally say something to her, he would take one look into her beautiful eyes and all his ability to think and speak would leave him. He could tell her all she meant to him, he could bare to her everything in his soul, but he could not say the three words that mattered most, the three words that Scully needed to hear above everything else in the world; I love you. 

  
It was strange that today was the day that he decided to tell her, finally, what he'd meant to say for the longest time. There was nothing particularly special about this Saturday. He just could not put it off any longer. It was killing Mulder to keep his true feelings bottled up inside. So he made the resolution and called her up, inviting her over. She'd said that she was on her way. Now it was a different sort of worry that was eating him up inside.

  
Impatiently, he stepped over to the phone preparing to dial Scully's number just one more time, but stopped himself from picking up the receiver. She's on her way, he repeated over and over to himself. When the phone rang suddenly, however, nothing could stop him from practically ripping the phone from the wall in his effort to answer it.

  
"Scully?" He questioned the other line desperately.

  
"Sir?" A pleasant female voice answered; it was not Scully. "Is this a Mr. Fox Mulder?" 

  
Mulder closed his eyes, trying to ward off his disappointment. "This is he..."

  
"Mr. Mulder, my name is Rita, I'm a nurse at the county General Hospital, I'm calling about a Ms. Dana Scully. She wanted us to call you. I'm sorry sir, she was admitted this evening after being in a severe car crash...." 

  
Mulder could not hear the rest of her words. He could not breath, he could not speak. Dark spots danced in front of his eyes and it felt as if a black hole had opened up in his heart. _Not again! _He cried out silently. This couldn't be happening to Scully, not his Scully. 


	3. Chapter 3

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See Disclaimers in Chapter 1.

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Too Few Words, Not Enough Time

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Chapter 3

By Kimberly Warner

"Mr. Mulder? Sir? Are you there?" Rita's voice brought him back to reality.

  
When he answered, his voice came out shaking, tears threatening his usually calm voice. "H-how is she? Is it bad...?" 

  
There was a silence. "I think you'd better come down here. She wants to see you."

  
He didn't hesitate. Without even saying goodbye, he slammed the phone into its cradle and ran out the door with his car keys. His thoughts swirled as he drove, and in record time he was at the hospital, rushing through the emergency room doors. 

  
"I want to see Dana Scully," he demanded like a madman to the nurse at the admittance desk. 

  
The pinched-looking nurse on duty looked up at Mulder with a scrutinizing gaze from under the pile of paperwork that surrounded her. She looked down and shuffled with some charts and said, without looking back up at him, "Are you family? Only family is allowed to see patients in ICU."

  
"ICU?" He paled. Then, thinking quickly, "I'm her fiancée, please, let me see her." 

  
The nurse stared up at him skeptically, but before she could respond they were both interrupted. 

  
"Fox? Fox Mulder?" He turned to the small, brown-haired woman addressing him. "I'm Nurse Rita Jones, I spoke with you on the phone about Ms. Scully," she said as she stepped up beside him.

  
"Where is she?" 

  
Rita took his arm and started to lead him down the corridor to ICU. She said nothing and her silence worried Mulder greatly. He just wished someone would tell him something, anything at all, about how she was. He wanted Scully to come walking down the hallway toward him, right that second. He wanted her to smile and hold him in her arms, assuring him it had been just a minor accident and that she was all right. He didn't want to be here in this cold, sterile smelling place, worrying about the one he loved.

  
Suddenly, Rita stopped in front of a closed door. Room two-hundred-and forty-two. He'd never forget. He reached out to open the door, but Rita stopped him. 

  
"We're really not supposed to let non-family members in to see patients," she said gently, "but she was asking for you, when she was brought in. She was able to give us your number. No one's been able to reach any of her other family yet and, I'm sorry to say, she isn't doing too well. I couldn't just let her be alone." 

  
Mulder's knees wanted to turn to jelly and his stomach fell to the floor, but somehow he managed to hold on to his composure. "How bad is it?" He forced himself to ask. 

  
She sighed. "The other vehicle hit her pretty hard. Her car isn't even recognizable anymore, from what I heard from the paramedics..." She stopped and looked straight into Mulder's hurting eyes, and then, "I won't lie to you.... it's bad." 

  
He stopped listening then, and didn't even pause a moment to brace himself before he pushed open the door to Scully's room. 

  
The scene was so hauntingly familiar, yet at the same time so much different than any time before. Scully lay there like a ghost. She hardly looked alive to Mulder. Innumerable tubes and bandages covered her still form; the left side of her face was shrouded in gauze. The only sound in the room was the gentle humming and beeps of the machines monitoring her status. 

Perhaps Mulder spoke her name as he stepped inside the room, but he was too numb inside to be sure. He didn't know what to do, what to say. He could only stand there and stare, waiting while his heart wanted to rip in two. 

  
_This is my fault, all my fault_, he thought. _If I hadn't asked her to come over_...

  
He couldn't console himself and he didn't want to. 

  
Somehow he managed to turn his head, looking at Nurse Rite. "Could I...could I be alone with her?" 


End file.
